Congratulations to all the winners in our Bank of the Year Awards. Leaders from across the global banking industry have once again demonstrated their resolve in the face of economic headwinds and market volatility during the past year. The winners demonstrated their ambition in developing innovative products and services, modernising their infrastructure and delivering strong bottom-line results.
Importantly, the focus on environmental, social and governance is a common thread in all winning submissions. Sustainability is no longer seen as a “nice to have”, but critical to the future success of each and every bank.
This year we have given awards in 140 countries. It was an honour to host around 300 senior bankers from across the globe for the awards ceremony in London.
To take home a Bracken trophy — named after Brendan Bracken, founder of The Banker magazine in 1926 — is a great achievement, as the winners face stiff competition across the board. The impressive quality of the submissions made choosing the ultimate victors a difficult job for our judges.
I would like to highlight the achievements of UniCredit, who scooped the global Bank of the Year award, as well as the Western Europe regional award and country awards for Italy and Bulgaria.
The judges were impressed by UniCredit’s turnaround story, delivering more than a 200% increase in profits during the full year under review, reducing its cost base and achieving its best-ever first quarter results in 2023. As such, it is well on its way to deliver its ‘UniCredit Unlocked’ 2022–2024 Strategic Plan, exceeding its ambitions to date.
The Italian bank is in the second phase of its industrial transformation, having made significant investments in digital and data. Alongside revamping its IT architecture through application programming and cloud infrastructure, UniCredit is investing in digitising all its processes to improve employee experience. Impressively, the lender’s environmental, social and governance commitments are ahead of peers, particularly its efforts to strengthen its focus on social issues.
In his video address at the gala event, UniCredit Group CEO Andrea Orcel said: “As a result of the transformative action that we have taken, today we are a fundamentally different bank. One that delivers consistent growth and sustainable profits across the continent. This is not the result of individual efforts, but stems from the collective commitment of the entire UniCredit Group… We are building a better bank and investing in a better future for Europe together. By doing this, UniCredit is setting a new benchmark for banking for the benefit of the people, the clients and the communities we serve.”
He also emphasised UniCredit’s commitment to being the “bank for Europe’s future” by entering new markets.
Two other winners are worthy of special mention. The first is Ecobank Zimbabwe, which picked up the Financial Inclusion award for its initiative to address the significant obstacles that rural women in Zimbabwe face in accessing financial services. In collaboration with Care Zimbabwe and UN Women, the bank is rolling out a financial inclusion initiative to empower women by providing access to capital. By the first half of 2023, the initiative has resulted in the opening of 3500 women’s savings groups’ accounts and benefiting approximately 52,500 women and households.
The second is BMO Bank, the US subsidiary of Canadian lender Bank of Montreal, which scooped the Banking in the Community accolade for its EMpower community benefits plan. Three years after launch, BMO has added $40bn to its initial $5bn commitment. Notably, $2.5bn of this supplementary commitment is explicitly earmarked to uplift women- and minority-owned businesses. Its ‘Zero Barriers to Business’ programme adopted an incubator-like model, which not only provides financial support, but also delivers customised educational resources, mentorship and networking opportunities.
While these three may deserve special mention, all the winners of our Bank of the Year awards are frontrunners among their peers and have excelled over the past year. You can read about their outstanding achievements here.
Joy Macknight is editor of The Banker. Follow her on X @joymacknight
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